Gwinnett Woman Helped In $5 Million Tax Scam

ATLANTA, GA — A Gwinnett County woman and two others used information about foreign nationals to file fake tax returns, scamming the government out of more than $5 million.

Marcia Farmer, 51, of Snellville, was sentenced in federal court to one year, six months in prison, to be followed by nine months of home confinement and three years of supervised release. She also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May to pay more than $3.3 million in restitution.

May was convicted after pleading guilty on October 28, 2016 to conspiring to submit false tax returns.

According to federal authorities, Farmer and two other women — Kim A. Earlycutt, 54, of Covington, and Shannon A. King, 37, of Lithonia — obtained information about foreign nationals through T&K Tax Services And More, which Earlycutt partially owned.

Using the documents they obtained, they filed with the IRS go get taxpayer identification numbers for the people, then created fake income tax claim forms for them. They also created fake W-2 forms, which had false employer and income information.

The three women filed the false tax returns with the IRS through T&K's electronic filing system. The returns called for tax refunds that were not actually due, according to federal authorities.

In all, they tried to get refunds in excess of $7 million and actually received more than $5 million. They used the money to pay personal expenses and Earlycutt used some of the money for gambling.

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Earlycutt was sentenced to nine years in prison and ordered to repay $5.2 million and King was sentenced to four years, six months and to pay restitution of nearly $2.6 million.

"The defendants went to great lengths to steal tax money from the IRS, with the twist in this case that they used stolen identities of foreign nationals to seek phony refunds," said U. S. Attorney John Horn. "It all comes back to basic theft to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayers."

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the U.S. Secret Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Huber prosecuted the case.

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